


only ever for children

by clumsyclouds



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angry Crowley (Good Omens), Angst and Tragedy, Aziraphale Is Trying (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Not Innocent (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Crowley's Name is Crawly | Crawley (Good Omens), During Canon, M/M, Noah's Ark, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), don't be too hard on him, what happened to all the children that drowned?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22039939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clumsyclouds/pseuds/clumsyclouds
Summary: before The Flood Crawley was shocked, but taking the whole 'killing kids' business rather lightly.but that was before.aziraphale finds him after The Flood, but he does not like what he finds.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	only ever for children

**Author's Note:**

> CW/TW: there are a couple of mentions of dead children and some rather pointed descriptions, if you'd rather not read about it then please, do click away. safety first!

It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Just as She promised.

Aziraphale had been on the boat the whole time, naturally. He imagined that he was helping, keeping everyone warm and spreading just enough peace for everyone to get some sleep at night. He miracled cheap tricks for the children to smile at when the adults weren’t looking. He wasn’t supposed to waste his Divine Gifts on something so frivolous as sparkles and butterflies, but they were just children. He could make an exception for children, surely. He always did.

The brother’s sang songs of old into the night, some of them were dirges of mourning while some were hymns of praise to the Almighty. All of them were solemn and sad.

Noah prayed for hours upon hours. Sometimes he thanked the Almighty for sparing him and his family, sometimes he begged Her to save the souls of those who’d drowned. Some of them were only children, after all. One would expect the Almighty to make an exception for the children who had yet to commit any sins. 

Aziraphale left the family when the prayers got too gloomy and desperate to check up on the animals, see that they were well fed, warm, as content as could be under the circumstances. Rather that than the alternative, he thought it best not to speculate on why hearing Noah’s prayer filled him with such guilt. 

He took the dogs in his lap and prayed for them. He asked the parrots to sit on his shoulders and he prayed for them as well. He picked up the cats and pulled them close and prayed for them. He stroked the foreheads of the horses and zebras and giraffes and prayed for them, too, as he did for all the other creatures, big and small in The Ark. Yes, even for the snakes. He corrected himself, _especially_ for the snakes. They got such a bad reputation just because they looked frightening. Aziraphale absentmindedly wondered what Crawly was doing. Completely unrelated thought, naturally.

He hadn’t dared to look the first days while everyone was drowning, scrambling for a place to take cover, screaming into the sky for a God who seemed to have forsaken them, (Noah had cried for hours the first week) but once the waters had taken the Earth, once everything was calm and still and so very quiet he looked out upon the vast sea and prayed for those who’d been lost. Still, they must have deserved it if She had decreed it. 

It was a lousy justification, but it was all he had. Ultimately, he trusted Her. Even when the wives of Noah’s sons cried about the friends they’d lost. Those friends can’t have been very good people if they didn't come on the boat. Of course, Aziraphale didn’t tell them that. It was difficult to even convince _himself_ of it. 

Eventually, the rain stopped. There was such a silence over the land. Almost like Upstairs. Dead calm and hauntingly empty. If the circumstances were different he might’ve thought it peaceful, even beautiful, but they weren’t, and it wasn’t, but it was Her Plan and therefore it was Good. It must’ve been.

Slowly, slowly, the water drifted away. He could just begin seeing the tops of the mountains peek up through the surface, soon the tallest trees as well. The clouds parted and the sun rose. Everyone cried and pointed towards the horizon where the sky was at its bluest. In a half-circle, a bow formed with the brightest colors, all the colors it seemed. She had once more created, and it had been Good. Despite himself a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Behind The Ark the sun shone brighter than ever before and in front of them a new dawn was rising over the horizon. A new age for humans. Another chance at getting it right.

Aziraphale almost forgot about his personal qualms with The Flood.

Almost. 

As the humans set their foot on new ground Aziraphale spotted something in the corner of his eye. Well, he didn’t exactly _see_ anything, but something nudged at his subconscious. Some urge to go into the dark cave just to his right. It wasn't like when the other angels tried to call to him, no, it came from within himself. Perhaps it was the slightly odd smell that put him off. Nevertheless, Aziraphale gave in to his curiosity against his better judgement.

He discreetly distanced himself from Noah and his family and with cautious movement delved into the dark and damp hole in the mountain wall. A green sort of mold had formed on the wall, and the smell.... The smell was so foul, like decay and...despair. Pure despair. It could swallow a human whole if put into physical form.

He snapped his fingers and a light appeared in his hand, big enough to light up from wall to wall and a bit further in. Though the flood had gone there was still a puddle left where his garments dragged through. They came out a sickening brownish-green. 

The smell only got worse and worse and soon he could hear sniffling, like someone crying. With a courage he didn’t know he possessed Aziraphale stepped around the corner and nearly vomited at the sight in front of him. 

He found Crawley, shaking violently and drenched to the core. His hair hung flatly around him in dark red stripes. The mirth was gone from his serpentine eyes, replaced by a void so deep and black it made Aziraphale shiver. 

When he looked further around, he found Crawley’s arms wrapped around the lifeless bodies of young children. Their hair was equally as wet, but they weren’t shaking, nor were they moving. They weren’t doing anything, because....

Aziraphale put a hand over his mouth and looked away to not see their unfocused, rolled back eyes.

“I tried to...to save them, but they were..." His voice cracked on the last syllable and Aziraphale couldn't tell if it was a tear running down his face or if it was just the water. He didn't know demons could cry. It must've been water. It must've.

"I was too late," he continued, "They’d already—”

“Crawley,” Aziraphale gasped and came closer, but Crawley hissed, making him stop dead in his steps. 

“Don’t come near me.” Vitriol and hatred dripped from his voice in a way Aziraphale had never seen before. For the first time since they’d met, he was afraid of the demon.

Aziraphale gasped as sobs bubbled up in his chest. “But, the children—”

“They’re all _dead!_ ” 

The scream echoed in the cave and Aziraphale flinched, pulled back, looked away and saw more children in the nooks and crannies of the cave, some still with their bone-thin arms wrapped around each other. He stumbled back and tripped over a stone, falling down on the damp floor. Only barely did his arms catch his fall. The sharp and jagged stones dug into the flesh there, but he didn't pay it any mind.

“This is your fault. _Her_ fault! She did this! Her and the _Great Fucking Plan!_ ” Crawley let go of the children and rose up smoothly and without effort, like a snake rising to attention at danger. Was Aziraphale 'danger'? Did Crawley consider _him_ the bad one?

_It'd be funny if we both got it wrong, eh? If I did the good thing and you did the bad one._

Bile rose in Aziraphale’s throat, more so than it already had. “We-we musn’t—”

Crawley approached him, towering above him and his eyes nearly glowed with fury. The angel couldn’t utter a single word.

“Don’t you dare. She _killed_ innocent children. She _killed_ their mothers and fathers. She let them _drown,_ slowly and painfully. They were _cold_ and I held them _in my arms_ as they cried out for their families! And _you_ let it happen, you disgusting coward!”

Aziraphale scrambled backwards as Crawley stalked closed, his midnight wings furled out behind him, stretching into their full glory and threatening to suffocate him in their vastness. His eyes had turned completely yellow and his tongue stuck out, forked at the end and thin like the blade of a knife. The demon had the power to kill Aziraphale and he couldn't even be sure that he'd defend himself. The guilt washed over him in waves and threatened to drown him like it had drowned the children.

As if reading the angel's mind, Crawly steeled his jaw and clenched his fists. “I could kill you,” he spat, “but unlike Her I do not kill in cold blood.”

Crowley disappeared out of the cave, splashing water in Aziraphale’s face as he went and it tasted as putrid as it smelled. The angel didn’t move, didn’t speak, simply let the foul air come in and out through his lungs even though he didn’t actually need to breathe, even though the air made him want to vomit out his insides and then some. 

And he stared.

No matter what he did he couldn’t stop staring, couldn’t take his eyes away from all those bodies. Those soulless, empty shells that once were full of laughter and life. Aziraphale even remembered some of them from before The Flood. Where were their souls now? It was a thought too horrid to think of. He remembered the way they’d marvelled as he miracled them butterflies even though he wasn’t supposed to. He only made exceptions for children. 

Only ever for children. 

The staring was a sort of punishment. Self-flagellation, perhaps. 

Or a reminder. 

She hadn't listened to Noah's prayers, nor to Aziraphale's. Surely, that must mean their deaths were a part of the Ineffable Plan, but what plan, no matter how ineffable and great, could justify the death of innocent children? He closed his eyes, then. It did no good to Doubt Her. See where that had gotten Satan, not to mention Crawley. No, he needed to have Faith. All would become clear sooner or later. After all, any child of Adam and Eve is born a sinner. No human is innocent. 

Even though he didn't want to he left the cave eventually. He had to. Head Office might wonder otherwise. He could grasp very little of what his and Crawley’s rendezvous meant, but he understood that he didn’t want Crowley to get in trouble over it, that he didn’t deserve to. He understood that it was something he couldn’t tell Michael or Gabriel. He understood that it changed him in a fundamental way that he couldn’t explain yet. Some part of him remained there in that cave, and would probably stay there for the rest of eternity.

The little seed of doubt deep inside his heart grew that day, whether Aziraphale knew it or not.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write a piece on aziraphale's part in the suffering that God has caused humanity. he's not innocent. nor is he to blame for all of it, but i sometimes feel like people need a reminder that while crowley has some Fundamental Good in him, aziraphale also has some Fundamental Bad. if they are each others yin and yang then it only makes sense. it's not just about aziraphale being an Completely Good Being who Occasionally Disobeys Gabriel and crowley being a Completely Good Being with a Streak of Naughtiness, it's about the fact that they've /both/ caused death and destruction, but that they have become better people in spite /and/ because of it.
> 
> might make a second part where they discuss it. who knows ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
